Composer of the Week

Donald Macleod explores Richard Wagner's exile in Switzerland, including a period of intense creativity that coincided with the entrance into his life of his second wife, Cosima. Their rented home was an undistinguished, three story villa near Lucerne, with splendid views of the distant mountains, and Wagner was incredibly happy here, accompanied by his young family, a pair of peacocks and two dogs called Wotan and Fricka.